Irezumi — Irezumi(Blu Ray)

Irezumi is an exquisitely scoped and moodily shot Japanese period drama-come-revenge thriller from the mid-1960s, which focuses on the daughter of merchant- turned- geisha. The film has its share of dark dramatics and deadly pathos- though it’s a largely tame affair, with the expected bloodshed, brutal swordplay and sleaze very much downplayed. Here from Arrow- both in the US and UK, is a Blu Ray release taking in a new print and a good selection of extras.

Irezumi appeared in the year 1966- it was directed by Yasuzô Masumura, a Yamanashi born director & writer, who is seen as a maverick filmmaker- due to many of his films focusing on individualism, which is against the grain of Japanese society. In total, between the years 1957-1984, he helmed fifty-seven feature-length films. Irezumi is certainly a wonderfully crafted and scoped film, look a lot classer than similar revenge/ exploitation film of the ’60s, though I’d say a large part of the film's runtime is more focused on period drama.
 
The film’s lead character is Otsuya(Ayako Wakao)- when we first meet this daughter of a Merchant, she is running away with Shinsuke (Akio Hasegawa) - a timid and easily manipulated young man. They are escaping in heavy snow, with wonderfully moody shots of the snow falling on a night-time bridge. They set up home in the houseboat of a local innkeeper- who unfortunately after a short time decides to sell Otsuya to a local whorehouse as a geisha. She is given a tattoo of a huge human-faced spider on her back by unbalanced tattoo artists Seikichi(Gaku Yamamoto). The first three-quarters of the film details Otsuya life as a geisha, as she slowly but surely starts to manipulate both her clients and whore-house owner. In the last quarter, we kick into the revenge side of things- with Shinsuke doing Otsuya deadly orders.
 
As well as been wonderfully scoped and captured- the acting throughout is largely very good. Wakao is well placed as manipulative-later-deadly devious Otsuya, Hasegawa is good as the weak and easily swayed Shinsuke. The period look, and the darkly tinged drama of the film are both done well, sure some of the pacing is a little slow in places, and the more edgy elements are largely implied. In its last quarter when the revenge side kicks in, we get a few bloody stabbings- and these once again are filmed well, with the films ending been both gruesomely memorable and arty. On the whole, Irezumi is going to please those looking more for darkly tinged and pathos lined period drama- you just may feel somewhat let down if you're looking for blood, flesh and sleaze you’d expect from a revenge film of this ilk. 
 
Moving on this Blu Ray- and the new 4K scan looks marvellous- with wonderful crystal-clear colour definition, great shadow and light balance, and an all-around great scan- one of the more classy scans I’ve seen in some time, so Arrow have done a great job. We get a commentary track from Japanese cinema scholar David Desser- and this is most worthy, he starts off by reading from the short story the film based on, he moves on to discuss how short the story was- only a few hundred words, so there was a lot added/ filled out for the film's script. He talks about the Daiei studio who released the film, moving onto Yasuzô Masumura filmography discussing some of his key films like his first film 1957’s Kisses, which was seen pre-date what the French New Wave directors were doing. He goes on to discuss on-screen acting and scene set-up, he talks about the period detail/ common customs in the Edo period (1603 to1867), and where he thinks it was filmed, and much more.  So an informed and interesting track. We get a nine-minute introduction from Japanese cinema expert Tony Rayns, and a thirteen-minute visual essay from Asian cinema scholar Daisuke Miyao.
 

It’s great to see Arrow Video continuing their reissues of the lesser-seen side of 60’s Japanese cinema with this release of Irezumi- and this new Blu Ray certainly features a splendid 4K scan, and a good selection of extras too.